Trump rebrands his ramblings as ‘I do the weave’ – but is he just losing it?
Trump rebrands his ramblings as ‘I do the weave’ – but is he just losing it?
Ex-president tries to fend off criticisms of mental acuity that plagued Biden as he waffles about sharks and batteries
For those baffled by Donald Trump’s forays into meandering discourses about electrocution, bacons sales or cannibal killers at his recent political rallies, the former US president had an explanation.
Trump assured supporters in Pennsylvania on Saturday that what might look like incoherent ramblings as he frequently departed from his scripted speech were instead indicators of his brilliance that impressed other great minds.
“I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’” he told a bemused audience.
“But the fake news, you know what they say, ‘He rambled.’ It’s not rambling. What you do is you get off a subject to mention another little tidbit, then you get back on to the subject, and you go through this and you do it for two hours, and you don’t even mispronounce one word.”
But, increasingly, many others are not persuaded, including some of his own supporters.
I love it. He thinks what he is doing is the same thing that John Oliver does masterfully on Last Week Tonight. What he’s actually doing I cannot for sure say, but I am fairly certain it involves extreme ADHD with maybe a side of schizophrenia and some sort of personality disorder. Oh and a large helping of rapidly worsening dementia.
114I have ADHD. I've described my train of thought as less a single train on a single track, but each car on one of 8 tracks, some of which are multitrack drifting. But I don't sound like Trump. He sounds like he's lost his marbles and when he bends over to pick one up, dumps out the rest of the bag.
96I have adhd too, the multitrack drifting has a point! It's all leading to something specific. Trump? He never had a point.
34I also have ADHD (and know a lot of people with it) and totally agree. We may be hard to understand at times, but we have a clear line of tangents that can be explained. Trump on the other hand has no coherence or traceable train of thought. He just jumps between half-finished, completely unrelated thoughts.
7
Donald Trump definitely does not have schizophrenia. ADHD is a maybe, but Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a certainty.
29And cocaine damage too.
23There have been rumors that he abuses amphetamines for decades.
31
schizophrenia
I'm not a psychiatrist, but I talked with one about what looks like this AFAIK, if I understood correctly, he called it lose associations, associating things all over the place disregarding their lack of relevance.
Of course just exhibiting one symptom, doesn't mean he is schizophrenic.
I think Trump does show some ADHD like behavior too, again I'm not a professional, but I think the problem for people with ADHD is that they forget where they came from, and Trump does seem to be able to get back to that.
But for sure, this is not a normal way to present your views. Except for a small child maybe, which fits the toddler label often associated with Trumps behavior.
So my best guess is that Trump is mentally like a child for whatever reason (Dementia most likely). Obviously besides being a malignant narcissist and pathological liar.
13This is absolutely not ADHD, this is his dementia and substance abuse. Having ADHD you may be distracted while trying to tell someone about something, but you'll be excited to talk about a special interest which may lead into another, but stuff will make sense and often more in depth than most care to hear.
Trump however has no interests beyond grifting and trying to sleep with Ivanka. However he word salads about a bunch of things he knows little to nothing about. He slurs words all over the place, stops mid-word and like brain skips for a sec, and then just goes into something unrelated. It's like his brain is constantly corrupting and causing a reboot.
12I think Trump does show some ADHD like behavior too, again I'm not a professional, but I think the problem for people with ADHD is that they forget where they came from, and Trump does seem to be able to get back to that.
Couldn't that just be because it typically has a teleprompter telling him what he's supposed to be talking about?
9I think Trump does show some ADHD like behavior too, again I'm not a professional, but I think the problem for people with ADHD is that they forget where they came from, and Trump does seem to be able to get back to that.
Could it be the teleprompter?
8
Just bog-standard demented sociopathic malignant narcissism.
9Yeah, it's mostly just brain rot. Like, let's be real: this man has never checked his brain for worms.
2
2
And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’”
Meanwhile, back here in reality, one of his actual professors at Wharton repeatedly referred to Trump as the dumbest student he’d ever had:
according to attorney Frank DiPrima, who was close friends with professor William T. Kelley for 47 years, […] I remember the inflection of his voice when he said it: ‘Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had!’
e: source
83Also, it's weird for him to claim to be friends with the a bunch of the very same people Republicans decry as ivory tower liberal elitists. He's weird.
45He doesn't have a single friend
13Trump is delusional.
9
Wharton had a chance to pass judgment on him and they did by granting him one of their shitty degrees.
5
Dude thinks he's John Mulaney, but he's actually just the senile uncle you try and avoid at family gatherings.
52There's a horse loose in the hospital!
20Dr. Octagon!
5
I can't say I watch a lot of trump speaking (because I heard enough of that guy long ago). However, the few clips I've seen on trumps rambling feel like he's trying to gain resonance with his audience (and failing). You can see pieces of this that worked for him during the the 2016 run. He'd mention some side topic, pause and watch for audience reaction, and if they responded favorable, he'd double down with a followup remark on that same topic. It many times came off looked semi-planned that that was where he was going to take the speech anyway back then even if that wasn't the case.
These days it looks like he's fishing for an audience response, gets none, sometimes switches back to the original topic, doesn't get a response, fishing again, no response, fishing again, no response, repeat. Its like he blew threw his good material, and is grabbing desperately for something his audience will cheer for. Chasing a dopamine hit of people cheering for what he is saying...and not getting it. I think this is also why he'll occasionally bring up Obama or Hillary because those (in campaigns now long past) hit his crowd very well. Where now those old reference just confuse his audience because they're not relevant to any political discussions today, but trump isn't saying any of this for political effect, but just to hear a crowd cheer for him so that doesn't figure into his immediate thought process.
47Trump is like Michael Scott at the shareholder meeting (on The Office US version). He loves applause so much that he goes dramatically off script and starts making wild promises that get the crowd into a frenzy. “Triple our profits! Carbon-neutral in a year!”
Trump does the same. He promises MORE healthcare for LESS taxes and the crowd loves it. He says he will win all the wars and do them QUICKLY. He gets into office and can’t deliver, so instead he lies about the “hundreds of miles of wall” he built when he didn’t, or pivots to those “evil democrats” stopping him.
29It's SUPER obvious he does just start talking and hopes for the best.
9
Yes, that's what I see, that's clearly what he's doing. The difference is that in 2016, he was able to retain in long-term memory what didn't work, and had the mental flexibility to try out new bits to find things that did. Now, he keeps going back to the same dry well over and over again, in every speech, which is evidence that he's losing it. (As further evidence, I'd point out that this is consistent with the amount of time it took him to grasp that he wasn't running against Biden anymore.)
9
“I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’” he told a bemused audience.
Holy shit that's amazing. Can you imagine this being "your guy"? That's the guy you're selling your soul for. What a fucking clown. It's pathetic, I hope all his voters are ready for the eyeliner wearing couch fucker to take over after a few months. (if he wins).
VOTE!!!
40I still find it amazing people believe the same constant child like lying.
Everyone says... A close friend of mine said... A professor said... Everyone knows...
...That I have the bestest (health/speech/IQ/humbleness/big hands)
37This is just the latest deflection from a man who knows he is entirely unfit for office. It’s pathetic that our politics has brought us to this place.
30Oh Donny... it's not a weave, you got plugs. Years ago.
25Let me try this weave shit:
So I woke up, the sky is, opened my fridge, the best fridge, everybody, I got out bed, you know where you sleep, i have the best bed everyone knows that. Grabbed some blue sky with some clouds, big clouds because i got bacon, you know bacon, the best bacon like my pillow my pillow is great that cloud up there that bigly cloud that's because of windmills, you don't want windmills they're killing bacon and like i said you know bacon it's great i like it on my hamburgers you know hamburgers the best hamburgers have bacon but no windmills, it's not going to raid because that windmill and that cloud they don't mix they don't the windmill takes all the wind and that's why it's hot out but there's not global warming i use my blanket at night because it's soo cold because of the bacon or the windmills yeah the windmills are why it's cold they're bad Kamala likes windmills and let me tell you how bad they are, they're bad I know because I'm a very stable genius and the sky the sky it has another cloud you see that? do you do you see that? it's because of Joe Biden that's right it's Sleepy Joe's fault and let me tell you, Tesla and Elon great guy the best really smart guy not like Kamala no no not like her she wants to can you believe this can you? My bacon is getting cold it's the evil democrats fault....
Yeah wow, it's a lot harder than I thought, he must be some kind of genius.... OR the dementia is getting worse, much worse.
20A dude I'd gone to school with tracked me down and started stalking me. The first time he showed up at my door he talked just like that. Seemed he's ended up on heavy drugs on the street and developed some severe psychosis.
Gotta say it was super weird reading that.
16
See, I have ADHD so that’s kinda how I roll too. My mind goes off on tangents as I’m talking.
But crucially, I’m not trying to be the president of the USA.
20I deal with that as well, which is one of the reasons why I would never run for any office.
Well that and I don't play well with others sometimes. I lack the patience and diplomacy one needs in politics.
8Do you also have dementia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6tfbBKKWmw
2
I’m an English professor. I’m willing to overlook a lot of stuff in student papers as long as I can follow it to the basic point they’re making. Donnie’s not even at a level that understands the assignment, and he’s refusing to ask for help. I can assure you he’s not Pynchon, either — he doesn’t want the publicity.
19In psychological terms we call that tangentiality or a tangential affect. Where the subject starts on one topic, and then continually digresses to other loosely or unrelated topics. It's a marker for mental illness.
Or we could just call it what it is, pulling it out of your ass.
19It's a brown weave
4
My explanation is:
- He gives a lot of speeches
- He has almost zero knowledge of government and policy. He likely thinks the US Treasury is responsible for protecting the treasure that's mapped on the declaration of independence.
- He can't read very well, and given his inability to sound the words out mid-speech he needs to fill in the parts of the teleprompter that has long words with whatever he can come up with on the spot.
17... seriously? That's all you got??
His father had dementia (thus genetically predisposed), he shows (and has shown for years) every single symptom of frontotemporal dementia.
...and your explanation is he gives speeched a lot and doesn't know big words? Are you trying to get a job with the media sane-washing his absurd bullshit?
11I can certainly see why people point to dementia, and given how dumb Trump is there's little difference for practical purposes. But I have to lean on the explanation of general stupidity plus poor reading skills simply because his weirdest statements seem to occur when reading from a teleprompter, as opposed to media interviews and debates.
Look at the video you linked - almost every example is from him giving a teleprompter speech. Trump clearly doesn't know big words like "rebuttal" "Venezuela" and "anonymous". So when he sees it on a teleprompter he kinda has to sound it out in real time. Seriously, watch the video again but instead of Trump imagine the dumb kid from your second grade reading class doing a reading assignment. The Hannibal Lecter thing has been pretty well explained by Trump not understanding the difference between "asylum" in the immigration context and an "insane asylum" like the one Hannibal Lecter is in. Again, he's just very, very unknowledgeable.
Yeah there's some other stuff like the weird lean but that's probably just explained by his weird obsession with height and some sort of lifts. Remember, when Trump got that terrible hair transplant, he was much younger. He's never been functioning properly at a mental level.
4
“I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I’ll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,’” he told a bemused audience.
This is what Kevin Smith did in his university Q&As fifteen years ago. He would tell an amazing and hilarious story that would loop back around ten minutes later to land on the originating topic in a brilliant manner. Trump, not so much.
16Yeah trump has never "come back brilliantly" he could be asked about childcare and he'll start out talking about Harris and end up by talking about Covid
6I do this when I try to explain destiny lore.
2
What he’s describing is at best a symptom of unmedicated/undermedicated adhd and also not what he does
15Don't forget he has serious issues with Adderall as well.
8
Sorry grandpa, inventing words to appear cool again is maximum weird.
14Decided to find his speech on YouTube after seeing this. He was coherent for about the first 5 minutes until he started going off his prepared speech, and God did it get incoherent fast from there. I only watched about 10 minutes, couldn't handle anymore than that.
11If you'd only made it til the end you could've heard his BEAUTIFUL WEAVE, and you too could experience English professor tears of joy
9I have seen more of the videos of his cults loyalty faltering and just a steady stream of people dipping out by halfway through (if not earlier). They are all excited on the way in but have no need to listen to Trump's dementia word salad monologue with his favorite unrelated topics that people at his rally are just 'meh' about (ex. - sharks + electrocution + EV boats, windmills, whales, bacon effected by wind).
4
No, don't you all see? He's actually so genius that we mere mortals can't comprehend his brilliance, as attested to by his multiple friends who are totally real English professors who exist and spend time with him, and are definitely not fictitious people he just made up on the spot to try to strengthen an obviously bullshit argument. Well, no, you wouldn't have heard them, because they, um, teach at a different school, but the important part is that they are intelligent enough to see the clever underlying structure of his wide ranging and definitely intellectually brilliant speeches, which the rest of us apparently aren't.
11you wouldn’t have heard them, because they, um, teach at a different school
In Canada!
5How dare you, I'm sure that they are good patriotic American English professors! They're just from a different state than you.
3
For him to lose it he would have to have it in the first place.
11I love that the highlight of "the weave" is that "you don't even mispronounce one word".
Stong Abe Simpson "Homer is not a communist" vibes.
11So hamberder and cofveve are real words? Got it.
2
He's talking about his hair again.
10Hes lost it, even if he ever had it
9I do the weave
Holy shit, he finally admitted the truth about his hair!
9This would be so much cooler if he was talking about the weave, as in the magic of Faerun.
8See that's why I thought it was incoherent, he was actually interacting with it where instead us mortals have to make mechanics and rules and
God I don't even want to overthink this, this is so beyond fun anymore.
5
The author gets to the crux near the end. Trump supporters don't come to speeches for policy, they come for performance art. That's what they expect from their leaders, because that's what they're trained to expect.
Between American entertainment trying to blur the lines between fantasy/ reality, and 24 hour news networks making everything a big deal the public at large has atrophied critical thinking skills.
8The ol’ dementia weave.
Sure, sure. Let’s get you to bed grandpa.
7you go through this and you do it for two hours, and you don’t even mispronounce one word.
This man once mispronounced his own last name.
7Most elderly people I know take up knitting, but you wanna weave baskets while you ramble incoherently be my guest. Here's your soup. Don't spill it!
7Natural born stupidity + narcissism + cocaine abuse + dementia + being surrounded by yes-men = “the weave”
6Man, who'da thunk the damn old and clearly mentally unstable candidate cannot, for the life of him, form a coherent reasoning of any single subject? This is clearly a surprise to all
6“I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer,” he told the crowd. “He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’”
Nobody's ever asked that question before because it's a stupid fucking question, not because you're a genius you dumb fucking prick. The person you asked is trying to let you down easy.
6" you know what they say, 'He rambled. It's not rambling.
5It's not rambling! It's just weaving off topic for a little bit while you're talking and then off of that topic to a third one and so on and then eventually maybe you just drop something so you can go back to the script. Rambling is something completely different, obvs.
2
I can forgive the author if they were trying to sneak this story past an editor who would have otherwise vetoed it. There's no question that a person who gives meaningless speeches sucks at communicating. That's definitional. The only question is how messed up their head is, and you can only infer that through their words and actions.
5“Formal Thought Disorder” is a facet of dementia.
How many of these boxes does trump tick where he fails?
Types and examples of disorganized speech
- Symbolism: pairing of thoughts with the correct meaning
- Tempo: the fluidity of words and conversation
- Processing: quality of thought content
- Continuity: direction of thought and conversation
Examples of specific types of disorganized speech may include:
- Paralogism: unusual word choice
- Verbal paraphasia: incorrect word usage
- Literal paraphasia: disordered sounds or sound sequence in words
- Neologism: creation of new words
- Displacement: citing a similar idea but not the correct one
- Contamination: fusing ideas into one another
- Accelerated thinking: rapid flow and increased volume of speech
- Flight of ideas: losing track of where a thought is going
- Inhibited thinking: slow processing of ideas
- Alogia: restricted speech and/or inadequate relay of information
- Circumstantial thinking: inability to determine essential information from unessential
- Desultory thinking: random topic jumps during conversation
- Derailment: sudden drop in train of thought
- Omission: inability to recall a main thought point
- Overinclusive thinking: conversation limits are never identified
- Echolalia: repetition of words or phrases
- Palilalia: fast repetition of words or phrases with decreasing audibility
- Thought blocking: Sudden gaps in thought for no obvious reason
- Verbigeration: nonsensical repetition of words
- Incoherence: complete speech disorganization; “word salad”
5Here's a great ad that builds on this comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6tfbBKKWmw
1
Trump TRIES to rebrand. And we reject it and it's unsuccessful....
4oh I get it, he was just pretending to be stupid.
4“Do the weave”? I wonder if he meant to say “duck and weave”. Like a boxer.
3"Grab 'em by the weave."
5